[oblio]

Curing addictions is very hard and some addictions are very strong. Some addictions are also guarded by business interests leveraging close to a trillion dollars to increase this addiction.

We didn't reduce smoking through personal responsibility, stop using "nanny state" tropes.

In democracies the government is an imperfect representation of the will of the people and sometimes it decides individuals can't fight some things.

[hcfman]

Good point bringing up smoking. Why don’t they just make smoking illegal in every country ? Because it’s impractical. Same as this law.

[throwawaythekey]

I find it uncomfortable that so many of the arguments focus on practicality and that so few focus on liberty. It almost seems like a forgotten concept.

[xxs]

The point of smoking is about the origins of the term 'nanny state' [0]:

[0]: https://wordhistories.net/2020/10/03/nanny-state/

[cma]

I agree parents should have the choice for kids using social media, but this example of impracticality is a bit off: cigarettes are illegal for kids in nearly all developed countries.

[matwood]

Smoking is also highly regulated now. It’s almost a surprise to see someone smoking nowadays.

[XorNot]

And yet over half my high school year smoked, and I was absolutely peer pressured to start.

[thaumasiotes]

> Why don’t they just make smoking illegal in every country ? Because it’s impractical.

Is that also the reason they don't make cocaine illegal in every country?

[DavidPiper]

And yet the things they have done have gone a long way to reducing the real harms caused by smoking.

A 5% spread of harm in a population is better than spread across 80% or 90%, etc. Taking action to reduce the surface area of harm, even if 0% is impractical, is beneficial to a functioning society.